


The Emperor's New Clothes

by saiikavon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M, Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:06:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiikavon/pseuds/saiikavon
Summary: Legendary tailor Lance McClain is hired to create a coronation robe for the new Emperor. He thinks he knows just how this job is going to go...but the Emperor may surprise him...
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72
Collections: Once Upon A Time: A Klance Fairy Tale Zine





	The Emperor's New Clothes

**Author's Note:**

> My piece, at last, for the Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale Klance Zine! Based, if you couldn't tell by the title, on the Emperor's New Clothes!

If there was one thing Lance McClain prided himself on, it was his ability to command attention. Whether it was to charm, soothe, or misdirect, he had the right words, the right gestures, the right expressions to do the job.

The emperor’s attendants were child’s play. He was used to playing to a high-born audience, and you didn’t get much higher than the two people hovering so near the throne, aside from the Imperial Majesty himself. People like them were either suspicious of everything or were overeager to accept grand gestures of charm and humor. These two were easily the latter, for all that they tried to play at professionalism. The emperor, though…Lance was still trying to get a read on him.

He stood behind his attendants, a silent but handsome sentry with a natural frown and violet eyes that glistened like setting ink. It was little wonder that the townspeople didn’t know him. He wasn’t a man you knew at a glance. If not for the golden circlet adorning his raven-black hair, Lance might have even taken him for a particularly imposing guard. He watched and said nothing as Lance was welcomed into the palace, expression blank as introductions were made, purposes stated. In fact, he almost seemed ready to fade into the background entirely.

That is, until Lance began to weave his grandest tale, the one that had seen him through the last six kingdoms without fail. With a sweep of his cloak, he told them of his magic garments. He could see the emperor’s attention shift, a spark of curiosity in his gaze while his attendants gasped in wonder. In three weeks’ time, Lance promised, he would weave the most beautiful robe the emperor or anyone else had ever seen…at least, anyone worthy.

The emperor’s brow furrowed again. “Anyone worthy?”

Lance nodded, a hand to his heart in a theatrical gesture. “Magic doesn’t come without conditions! Anyone who is unworthy of their position, or even just particularly dull-witted, won’t be able to see a single thread. Of course, Lance McClain only serves the wisest and most worthy. I know that you will appreciate my work!”

The attendants began tittering in excitement at once, eager to give Lance the time and gold he required to get started immediately. The emperor’s frown only seemed to deepen.

Whatever the emperor’s misgivings were, however, in the end Lance was given a workroom and access to the finest silks and threads to begin his work.

Once he had the workroom to himself, Lance got to work.

Not on the emperor’s robe, of course. None of the royal commissioners he had visited in the past had ever gotten a true taste of his tailoring skills. He spun his magic yarn, so to speak, and then spent the time tailoring warm winter coats or mending old shoes and tunics for the local townsfolk. The scowling emperor wouldn’t receive a stitch, and if things played out as they always had, then he wouldn’t even realize it until Lance was long gone.

During the first week, Lance sewed and enjoyed the view from the window. It overlooked the kennels, where the emperor’s hounds were kept. Lance, having a soft spot for dogs, enjoyed watching them chase each other and tumble about in the soft grass. Though he was completely surprised when, at the start of his second week, he found himself watching the emperor himself running around in the kennel, too.

He was captivated by the bewildering sight until one of the emperor’s attendants arrived, excited to see his progress. Lance tore himself away and put on his usual show, bowing and beaming as he showed off his empty loom.

“I thought these colors suited the emperor’s radiant complexion,” Lance said, “And the detailing! It will be to his liking, I hope?”

The attendant gave him a strained smile, frozen in place for one tense moment before he began gushing in return. “Oh, yes, the colors! And the detail! You are truly a master at your craft! The emperor is sure to be pleased!”

The attendant soon left in a fit of stammered praises and flighty glances. When Lance turned to look out the window again, the emperor was gone from the kennels.

Another week later, and Lance found himself bewildered as the emperor darted inside only to duck behind the changing partition at the far end of the room. Before Lance could ask what was happening, the emperor’s second attendant rushed in, out of breath, and asked if Lance had seen his Majesty. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance spotted the emperor’s wide-eyed expression pleading with him to deny it.

Mercifully, Lance did so; he shook his head at the attendant and then offered his most disarming smile before turning to his invisible project. He carried on about beads and embroidery, watching the attendant’s expression stretch out in an uncertain smile as he beheld the empty space. His task forgotten, he finally stammered out a few affirmations before hurriedly excusing himself.

Once the attendant’s footsteps could no longer be heard, the emperor stepped out from behind the partition. He didn’t seem to want to meet Lance’s eyes, and rubbed the back of his neck in a very strange, self-conscious gesture.

“Thank you for that,” he said, his tone so genuine that it made Lance’s stomach feel funny for a moment. “They’ve had me working on foreign diplomacy for hours. I had to get away for a moment.”

Bemused, Lance responded, “You could just tell them no. You are the emperor.”

The emperor blinked. “But if I always say no, I could wind up rejecting something important. I just…needed a break today, that’s all.”

Lance felt a response on the tip of his tongue that fizzled out as the emperor thanked him again with a soft smile. He left, with Lance’s pondering gaze following him out the door. It took a moment for Lance to realize that he hadn’t said a thing about the empty loom.

The deadline was only days away when Lance saw the emperor again, as silent and serious as the day they had met, but twice as mysterious. Still a little lost on how to handle the man, Lance presented his invisible work with perhaps half of his usual enthusiasm, his eyes locked onto the storm clouds in the emperor’s own.

“So,” Lance said at last, “what does His Imperial Majesty think of my work?”

“Just Keith, please,” the emperor replied, making Lance’s heart leap. “And I’m sure your work is…spectacular. Everyone keeps telling me so, after all. But I can’t see it.”

“You…what?”

Lance had run this scheme dozens of times, and found a kind of comfort in its repetition. He knew the dialogue as though reading from a script. The attendants met Lance’s expectations with their half-hearted and confused praises, but not the emperor. Not _Keith_.

For once, Lance was the one left floundering.

“My father was a shepherd,” Keith admitted with a small sigh. “I had no idea I was even related to the late emperor until the royal guard showed up in my pasture a few months ago. I thought that I could try to help my country, my people, but it seems clear to me now that I was never worthy of this.”

This was not a royal the likes of which Lance had ever seen. This was a man, an honest one, stumbling as he tried to do the right thing.

Lance could not find it in himself to punish that.

“There’s no robe,” Lance admitted, so suddenly that he startled himself as well as the emperor. “There never was. I made up the entire ‘magical garment’ story.”

All at once, the downtrodden expression disappeared from the emperor’s face, replaced with one of quiet fury. To his credit, however, he remained silent, only crossing his arms as he allowed Lance to explain.

Lance told him everything. He admitted to the countless times he’d used the ruse, and the reason for his lies. Admitted that he thought Keith would be the same, too absorbed with himself to think of how his people felt or what they needed. Keith listened, demeanor flitting back and forth between being angry and softening over the reasons. After all, Keith wanted to help his people, too.

“You might want to fire your attendants,” Lance supplied helpfully, at the end of his story.

“Noted,” Keith replied dryly, no doubt recalling the numerous exaggerated descriptions he’d heard about the nonexistent garment. “But what do I do with you?”

“Give me another chance,” Lance replied. “Let me make you a real robe for your coronation. I promise I do have the skills.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

The two watched each other a moment, Lance earnest in the face of Keith’s wary gaze. Suspicion flickered away in favor of surprise when Lance knelt before him, a hand over his heart.

“I, Lance McClain, solemnly swear my fealty to you, Imperial Emperor Keith. I vow to make a coronation robe worthy of your honesty, and of the Emperor you strive to be.”

Keith stared in awe. The words struck his heart, for no one else had ever sworn such to the person that he was, the person that he wanted to be. Honor, glory, greatness he had yet to achieve, certainly…but in the words Lance spoke, Keith saw the truth in his promise.

His voice was soft when he spoke again. “Please, rise,” he said, and smiled when Lance did so. “You have your second chance.”

Lance smiled in return, and thanked him.

Keith did, indeed, fire his attendants. From that point onward, he visited the workshop on his own to see how Lance would keep his promise. Shimmering reds and golds spread like fire across the loom as the days passed, the colors warm and inviting instead of blinding and gaudy. Sleek golden dragons snaked across the garment in silken thread. It was a robe fit for a man who would act as a protector for his people, not one who would stand over them.

Lance poured his heart into it, and through it, found his heart captured by the man he hoped to reflect in it. What had begun as respect had formed into something stronger, something that made him want to stay here long after his work was done.

At last, it was finished, and his heart pounded as he presented it to Keith. When he slipped it over the emperor’s shoulders, he found himself almost weak at the knees, for it fit perfectly, and suited the man well. He watched Keith admire himself in the mirror, and knew he was completely lost from the way his stomach flipped when Keith turned to smile at him in thanks.

“It looks wonderful,” Keith said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Lance beamed, and then steeled himself to ask to stay…but the emperor interrupted, a strange light dancing in his eyes that Lance couldn’t quite place at first.

“I think there’s something missing, however.”

Lance frowned. What could be missing? He was sure he’d thought of everything, from the colors to the embroidery to the length.

“It needs a partner to match,” Keith continued. “One for the man who would stand at my side.”

He stepped forward, and Lance felt that moment as a dream, especially when Keith took hold of his hand and looked at him with eyes that seemed to mirror the love that Lance had in his heart.

“If he will accept, that is.”

Lance would not dream of saying no.

He made a garment of cool silvers and blues, and it looked perfect next to the emperor’s red and gold on the day of their coronation. The townspeople cheered for their new monarchs as they walked through the streets, hand in hand, together forever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr!  
> Main: http://saiikavon.tumblr.com/  
> Writing archive: http://saiikasnotebook.tumblr.com/


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